"Isn't that... Sam Uley?"

Jacob pulled the car over as Bella looked across to one of the nearby cliffs, both of the teenagers hoping out of the truck as they squinted a little to get a better look at the four shirtless men standing at the edge.

"And his cult," Jacob replied, the bitterness seeping through his voice as he noticed his twin sister leaning against Paul, laughing as Sam and Embry wrestled Jared into the air and towards the edge of the cliff. She continued to laugh as Paul rolled his eyes at the trio's antics, allowing Kiara to lean against him for the warmth he provided.

"Oh my God! Stop them!" Bella exclaimed as the boys threw Jared off the side of the cliff, laughing out loud before Paul dived in after him. Kiara threw her head back and laughed with the others, Embry looking over at her and grinning in delight to see how well she was adjusting to being around them and knowing the truth.

"They're not really fighting, Bella. They're cliff diving," Jacob laughed, Bella's panic taking his mind off his sister for a second.

"What, on purpose?"

"Scary as hell, but a total rush. Most of us jump from lower down. Don't get any ideas, we'll leave the showing off to Sam and his disciples," Jacob continued as he noticed her face suddenly turn curious as he explained it to her. The bitterness had seeped back into his tone as he looked out across at them, noticing that Kiara had seeminly spotted that he was standing there with Bella.

"You don't like them?" Bella questioned, but she could already tell from the vibe his words had created that he didn't.

"They think they run this place. Acting all bad ass, calling themselves "protectors.""

"What are they protecting?"

"The tribe, the land, their right to be jerks. Embry used to call them hall monitors on steroids; now look at him. Kiara too."

"That's Embry? I didn't recognize him. What happened to him?" Bella asked, shock seeping through her tone as Embry turned and jumped off the cliff after Paul and Jared. Her eyes trailed over to Kiara standing beside Sam, laughing at something the older man was saying to her.                               

"He missed some school - then, out of nowhere, he's following Sam around. Same thing happened with Paul and Jared. They weren't even friends, now Sam owns them. Kiara hated Sam and the next thing I know she's spending more time at his than she does at our own house," Jacob admitted before noticing that Sam had turned to stare across at them too. "Sam keeps giving me this look, like he's waiting for me or something; it's kinda freaking me out."

"Waiting for what?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, I don't want any part of it."

______

"I did see something in the woods," Angela told them all the next day at lunch, having sworn that she must have seen whatever had attacked Kiara when she was out a hike that weekend. Of course, Kiara was very aware that her and Angela were NOT thinking about the same creature, but it wasn't like she could just admit that.

"Baby, I believe you," Eric told her but was quickly counteracted by Jessica.

"No he doesn't; he's just trying to get lucky," she replied, causing Kiara to snigger a little as Mike continued to scribble on her cast. He had been the only one left to sign it out of their usual group and had finally decided that today was no better day than any other to leave his mark.

"It was jet black and HUGE! On all fours it was like still taller than a person," Angela continued, making Kiara shift a little uncomfortably in her seat. "A bear maybe?"

"Yeah, I think it was a cougar that attacked me, not a bear," Kiara replied, trying to keep her story more believable while also protecting the reputation of the wolves. "But I do reckon a bear could be wandering around the forest too."

"You're not the only one."

The table all looked up as Bella sat down, an occurrence that was rare these days. If the others wanted to say something about her apperance, they didn't do it vocally.

"My dad's been getting reports at the station. Like, five hikers have been killed by some bear but they can't find the bear."

Kiara continued to talk to Jessica as Mike turned to Bella, abandoning his masterpiece of a signature on her cast as he invited the antisocial girl to the movies with him that weekend. He had already prewarned the rest of the group he wanted to ask her, something that amused Kiara and annoyed Jessica.

"Do you guys wanna go see face punch?" Bella interrupted their conversations, getting the rest of the table invovled in the conversation.

The rest of them all immediatley agreed before turning to look at Kiara's response. She shrugged, knowing that she already had plans with the pack as they'd promised to have a pizza night once she had finished school.

"What, too busy joining a cult?" Bella asked, so out of character for her that the rest of the table's mouths dropped open. Kiara felt her anger flare up immediatley, grabbing her bag and raising from the table as she glowered at Bella in betrayal. She kenw she would have to leave before she said something she couldn't take back.

"Don't let my brother cloud your head Bella, you don't know what you're talking about."

The rest of the group turned back to Bella with shocked faces as Kiara stormed away from the table, throwing the rest of food on her tray into the bin on the way out and heading straight to the parking lot. The girl had free periods for the rest of the day and had only been staying for lunch to spend time with the group as she had been missing a lot of social interaction since the Cullen's left.

Bella felt a little guilty as she watched her go. She knew that Kiara wouldn't want to go see Face Punch - but maybe extending the offer to Jacob would be a good way to extend an olive branch to Kiara.

_____

"Have you ever been in love?"

Paul and Kiara turned their heads to look at Embry as he broke the silence. The two boys and the Black daughter were laying on the beach, and despite the freezing cold of the weather, Kiara felt nothing but heat as Paul and Embry's shoulders pressed against her own. A wolf advantage, she recalled.

The faint laughs of Sam and Emily, and Jared and Kim could be heard echoing from the small campfire that they had built when the sun had started to go down, Kiara's mind fainting echoing with the comparison of how they didn't quite have the melodic undertones that Rosalie's laugh had.

"Nah," Paul replied immediatley, pushing himself up on one elbow to look at Kiara and Embry instead of the stars above them. "Never."

"I think I have," Kiara admitted after a beat. The two boys both raised an eyebrow as they looked at her, but her eyes remained on the stars in the sky above them. She was aware that Sam and Jared could be listening in on their conversation if they wanted, but she was sure that they were too engrossed in their imprints and even if they had been listening, she knew she would be fine telling them the truth.

Paul snorted a little as he looked at her, a lopsided grin on his face as he burst into laughter at the thought that came into his head. Kiara and Embry turned to look at the boy, squinting as they waited for him to share the punchline of the joke he had just thought up.

"It certainly wasn't me," Paul replied, causing Embry to groan as he thought about how he was now very, very aware of the fact Paul and Kiara had slept together various times throughout the years. Kiara smacked his arm playfully before Paul continued speaking. "Wait... do you mean with that boy from last summer? Oh, what was his name... Rick?"

Kiara shrugged a little.

"Riley."

"He was cute," Paul replied, noticing how Embry was hiding a smile too.

"Shut up, he was a dick," Kiara replied as she pushed his elbow and watched him faceplant into the sand.

Paul hollered out as Embry pulled Kiara to her feet and gave her a head start towards the campfire, the other pack memebrs and their imprints laughing as they watched Paul try to tackle Kiara into the sand. He eventually caught up to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and hauling her over his shoulder.

Everyone laughed as they all rejoined around the campfire, Kiara looking around and smiling a she finally felt like she was fitting in somewhere. As they all exchanged stories about Sam and Emily's high school years, Kiara started to feel a sudden feeling of dread come over her. It was like it came out of nowhere, and just as she turned to tell Sam that she wasn't feeling too well, the interuption of her phone brought her back to reality.

"Hey, can one of you drop me home? Bella said Jake seemed upset and I want to be in for him coming home," Kiara asked, Sam nodding as he grabbed his jacket and fished the keys out of his pocket. The man pressed a gentle kiss to Emily's temple before Kiara wished everyone a good night and headed over to his truck.

Little did Kiara know, Face Punch was about to turn her life completley upside down once again.

______

Kiara sat on the porch, her phone pressed to her ear as her eyes trailed the track, waiting for Jacob to arrive home. Bella had texted her to say that he seemed angry and unwell, and Kiara was sure that she was going to hear all about how bad Jacob's night had been as soon as he pulled up on his motorbike.

"How is she, really?"

"I don't know," the gruff voice replied down the phone, and Kiara was sure that she could feel the slight tone of guilt in Edward Cullen's voice as he muttered down the phone. "She won't talk to me. It's my fault we had to leave Forks... my fault we had to leave you and Bella."

Kiara furrowed her eyebrows as he uttered the last sentence, choosing to skip past his utter self-hatred that she was sending from his words.

"I thought it was Carlisle's new job, the reason you left?"

"I... convinced him to take it," Edward answered after a beat. Kiara wasn't sure he sounded like he was telling the truth, but she didn't expect much from the boy anymore. Especially since he was phoning her out of the blue on a random Wednesday evening, months and months after ignoring all of prior communication.

"Okay," Kiara murmured after a moment. "Just tell me... did it hurt her as much as it hurt me?"

If Edward had been a selfless person, he'd have spared Kiara the heartache and hung up the phone. That would have been enough for her. It would have been the closure she needed.

Instead he replied.

"I think it might have hurt her more than anything imaginable. I think... I think a piece of her died when we left you and Forks behind."

Kiara gulped, her and Edward sitting in the silence as she tried to take in his words. It was as if the bandaid had been ripped off, and her coping mechanism of believing Rosalie never really loved her shattered at her feet. The rustling of the trees were numb to her ears as she felt her chest clench slightly.

Rosalie had cared about her after all.

The screech of Jake's motorbike tyres on the wet sand track alerted her to the presence of her brother - the sole reason she came home from the bonfire early. She huffed for a second as he ripped his helmet off, throwing it on the ground with an angry yell.

"Edward, I need to go."

Kiara pressed the cancel button on the call at the exact same time Jacob latched eyes on her from across the driveway. His already angered face had turned livid, his teeth gritting together as betrayal crossed his face.

"Edward?"

Shit.

"You're fucking talking to... to THAT freak?"

Kiara wasn't scared of Jacob. She hadn't been scared of Jacob when he screamed at their dad after the death of their mom. She hadn't been scared of Jacob when he beat up Daniel Lucas in fifth grade for pulling on her pigtails too hard. She hadn't been scared of Jacob when he crashed his first motorbike with her on the back into the wall of their garage when they were fifteen.

Kiara wasn't scared of Jacob at all. But this wasn't Jacob Black that was storming across the path towards her. In the torrential downpour of rain, she didn't recognise her twin brother - and that terrified Kiara Black.

The faint slamming of the front door crashing open usually would have broken their arguments apart, but Billy's stern bark did nothing to distract Kiara or Jacob from the intense atmosphere that had been created.

"Jacob, calm down," Kiara warned, her eyes flickering to Billy with a knowing look as her hand touched his chest and could feel the warmth seeping from his soaked T-shirt. "Dad, I think you need to call Sam."

"Call Sam? First you're calling that douche bag who literally left Bella to DIE in the woods - whose sister dumped you and left you like you were just one of her designer handbags she got bored of?" Jacob screamed at Kiara as he moved towards her, Kiara being too high on the adrenaline in the moment to react to Jacob exposing her and Rosalie's relationship to her father who she had hidden it from for months.

"Jake... Look, calm down and wait for Sam to get here! He'll explain why you're feeling like this -"

Kiara didn't get to finish her sentence.

Her and Jacob had fought many times over the years - but as they got older it was rarely ever physical. Yet here she was, scrambling backwards on the mud that Jacob had just pushed her down on to, his figure advancing towards her threateningly.

She could see his outline trembling, the teeth grit of pain as his bones slowly started to ready themselves for the transformation. She understood now the fear that Emily must have felt when Sam shifted at her all those years ago. She could faintly register Billy screaming, but the faint ringing in her head from the blood that was trickling down the side of her cheek from where she had caught it on a rock when Jacob pushed her to the ground was blocking out his cries. 

Kiara knew what was about to happen before it did. It didn't matter how quickly she attempted to scramble back from Jacob, she wouldn't be able to outrun her twin brother now.

His clothes were shredded, the bare scraps blowing in the wind as the rain hammered angrily on the ground around Kiara. Water splashed against Kiara's jeans as four heavy paws splashed into the puddle at her feet, a loud rumble of a snarl coming from the russet wolf in front of her.

She had seen the other boys phase regularly since her attack but there was something about seeing her brother - as a wolf - with no recognition in his eyes advancing towards her.

Just as Jacob went to lunge towards her, he was slammed backwards and sent flying into the side of their dad's truck. Kiara looked up as she heard her dad yell out in surprise, noticing the familiar black pellet of Sam standing protectively in front of her. She frantically peered around the alpha, seeing that the wolf that had slammed into Jacob was Paul.

Sam turned to look down at her, a low grumble falling from the wolf as he almost nodded to check if she was alright. Kiara heaved, slowly nodding as she looked over to Billy who was the palest she had ever seen her dad.

As the wolves wrestled their way back into the trees, Kiara looked down at the scratches on her hands from when she had scrambled to get away from the one person she had thought would never try to hurt her.

Her brother was a member of the pack now. Things were going to be much different from now.

And that scared the shit out of Kiara.